Millet renaissance
“Once people stopped growing millet, the panel calendar no longer had any significance,” says Savungaz Tanapima, principal of Jiou Mei Primary School. “We felt we had to cultivate millet in order to understand what the panel calendar was trying to convey.”
In recent years there has been a cultural renaissance movement among Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, and they have begun by reviving cultivation of millet in conjunction with the culture and rituals associated with this crop.
Jiou Mei Primary School is an experimental school for ethnic minorities with students drawn from the Bunun and Tsou indigenous peoples. Five years ago millet was planted in the school garden and seasonal rituals were incorporated into the curriculum design, with a series of themed classes being developed.
In the summer holiday, the school holds the thanksgiving ritual that is unique to the Takitudu community of the Bunun people, an activity which has proven to have great instructional value. Early in the day, the ceremony begins with prayers from village elders, after which Tanpilic Balincinan leads the way in the “storage ritual.” The children line up in single file to carry recently harvested crops including millet, corn, green beans, and papaya into a traditional Bunun dwelling house built on the school campus for storage, symbolizing an abundant harvest.
Next a fire is lit and a pig slaughtered. The pig’s blood is daubed on door lintels to symbolize protection of the residents against evil and disease. Later the participants divide into groups to undertake various tasks: The women and girls filter the lees from the millet wine. Meanwhile some of the men and boys, intoning the pasibubut song of prayer for a good harvest, go into the taro fields to ceremonially shoot arrows into taro stems, while others cook millet congee, prepare food, and carve up the pig for roasting.
Finally, everyone gathers together and they throw the wine lees into the air while loudly proclaiming “Vis!” This symbolizes gratitude to the spirits of the sky, the land, and all things in the world, as well as harmony between people and new beginnings or the start of a new year. As the ritual ends, elders intone heartfelt exhortations before they finally serve up the pork and everyone eats together, reliving their community lifestyle of days gone by.
Slaughtering a pig is an indispensible part of celebrations of important days by the Bunun people. After the pork is cut up and cooked, it is eaten collectively, which illustrates their culture of sharing.
The Bunun people brew millet wine for worshipping heaven and expressing thanks. The millet wine lees are used in a ritual in which they are cast into the air as an offering.